After another amazing activity filled weekend of the 200hr teacher training course at YogaHub, there are many things I could write about. On reflection, the most powerful of all activities that took place over the course of the weekend was my first experience of an “Osho Active Meditation” technique with Casey.
Before I delve into the experience of the meditation itself, I must first outline a bit about the background of the man behind the practice.
Who is Osho?
Osho (11 Dec 1931 – 19 Jan 1990)
Osho was an Indian mystic, guru and spiritual teacher. His international following has continued after his death.
According to Osho every human being is a Buddha with the capacity for enlightenment, capable of unconditional love and of responding rather than reacting to life, although the ego usually prevents this, identifying with social conditioning and creating false needs and conflicts and an illusory sense of identity that is nothing but a barrier of dream. Otherwise man’s innate being can flower in a move from the periphery to the centre.
Active Meditation Techniques
Osho presented meditation not just as a practice but as a state of awareness to be maintained in every moment, a total awareness that awakens the individual from the sleep of mechanical responses conditioned by beliefs and expectations. He suggested more than a hundred meditation techniques in total. His own “Active Meditation” techniques are characterised by stages of physical activity leading to silence.
The Osho Meditation Experience
Before anybody goes and searches for this type of meditation on YouTube, I would strongly advice people not to attempt this type of meditation alone. The practice can bring up powerful emotions and it is best done within a guided group setting.
The practice was guided from start to finish by Casey. Taking a comfortable standing posture with knees slightly flexed and hands by our sides we were directed to close our eyes. We were then guided through our breathing technique, breathing in and out through the mouth at a fast pace throughout the practice. We were also encouraged to use our hands to assist in pushing our breath out from each of the 7 individual chakras, from the root to the crown. Fast paced meditation music was played in the background in order to assist with the breathing process.
I stood wooden for the first few minutes, not quite sure what to do with my hands. I was focusing way too hard on puffing and panting out my mouth to even consider moving any limbs. I feared for any YogaHub members passing by the room as they may have been disturbed by the heavy grunting and gasping. To be honest, I wasn’t comfortable with the sounds in the room, especially the ones I was making.
Roughly 10 minutes into the process I opened my eyes and everybody in the room was throwing their hands around, breathing heavily and just going with it. With this in mind, I shut my eyes and dropped my inhibitions as best I could. As I got more into the process, I started to fire out breaths of anger and frustration, forcing them out of my mouth at a ferocious pace as my arms and hands threw out some serious shapes.  As time went by my chest began to burn as though it had never experienced such powerful breathing. My head became light and hands and feet began to tingle.
About 20 minutes in and I was completely consumed in the process. My body began to tingle all over and there were moments when I thought I was going to pass out. I’m incredibly stubborn so I was adamant that I would finish the process. If I was going to pass out, then so be it. Breathing fast in and out of my mouth for a long period of time is not a regular activity of mine so I was in unchartered territory as far as my body and mind was concerned.
30 minutes of intense breathing later we slowly transitioned into shavasana (corpse pose). As I lay down and shut my eyes I was panting for air. I was completely relieved when we were directed to lie down as I was close to screaming, crying, yelling or exploding towards the end of the standing practice. I was noticeably exhausted and overwhelmed with various emotions. It took a few minutes in shavasana before I started to calm down. As my breath began to slow down to it’s natural rhythm, my body felt incredibly light as I felt layers of tension dissolve into the ground beneath me.
After 45 minutes the practice was brought to a close as we came up into a seated posture and opened our eyes.
Conclusion
The whole active meditation process was incredibly powerful and it brought me to places that I have only ever gotten close to with other substances. Osho Active Meditation is definitely worth trying and I hope Casey plans to do an “Active Meditation” workshop soon as I would love to go deeper into this meditation process.
If you haven’t tried this type of meditation it is definitely worth trying, especially if you find seated meditation extremely difficult to do.
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